A Sleep Like Death
by TheHazardsOfLove13
Summary: What if Aurora never met Philip? What if she was told about Maleficent from the beginning? What if she decided to confront Maleficent herself? A slightly AU fic where the villain wins, because villains are always the best.
**Written for the Caesars Palace Build-A-Bear Challenge. Enjoy!**

Keep hidden, she had always known this. Don't show your face, for she might be there. Maleficent was lurking behind every shadow, ready with the spinning wheel to send her to everlasting sleep, death in all but name. She had been told this, she knew the danger.

So why was it that at the brink of midnight, on the day of her sixteenth birthday, she crept out of the house to find her? Perhaps it was curiosity, she wanted to know why she had been saddled with this burden, what she did to deserve any of this. Perhaps it was of some futile hope that he could save herself, kill the witch and break the curse. That hope had mostly vanished, a curse was a curse, no matter who tried to deny it. She knew it, her fairy parents knew it, probably even her father in his tower knew it. She would not be returning to the castle, except as a living corpse.

But whatever the reason, she followed the black-winged raven to the castle. It was dark and forbidding, a black, twisted, ruin of a place. The girl wondered why, with all her power, Maleficent couldn't make herself a better castle, a palace to rival her father's. Perhaps, she mused, the witch, like her fortress, was ruined and gloried in her ruination.

Suddenly, she was before Maleficent. "Yes, what do you want?", the witch said, not snapping, but almost coldly amused. "You're remarkably tenacious to make it here, most who try are lying in a graveyard."

"I was always told that you'd be behind every shadow, and what casts a more ominous shadow than a black-winged raven?", said the girl, determined to face the witch bravely. The bravest never fought the executioner, but accepted their death with resigned eyes, determined not to hurt the loved ones left behind. Maleficent was the hangman, and the rope was around her neck.

"Who are you?" asked the witch, intrigued by the girl without fear. Or if she was afraid, she was hiding it very well.

"I am one that you cursed long ago, as a child, on the day of the celebration of my birth," said the girl.

Maleficent laughed, a bitter, mocking sound. "You think you are the only one? I have cursed many children, why you've met one of them already." She stroked her raven, which let out a harsh cry, almost a scream of pain at her touch. "What was yours? Death, eternal servitude, or was it something else?" She let her voice linger questioningly on that last word. "No, I remember you. The king's daughter, cursed to touch a spindle on your sixteenth birthday and fall into a sleep like death. Is today the happy event?" she asked, her smile widening.

The girl nodded, not trusting herself to speak. "Why did you do it?" she asked after a long silence. "Why condemn me to this, just because you weren't invited to a party?"

Maleficent laughed again. "My dear, you never need a reason, all you need is an excuse. The party was only the tip of the iceberg. Him and his perfect friendship, and his perfect kingdom, perfect wife, perfect daughter. There is a joy in breaking something perfect, what other reason do you need than that?" She flicked her wrist, casually, and a spinning wheel appeared, the polished black lacquer seeming unnaturally perfect among the ruins.

"What do you mean?" the girl sad, trying hard to keep the tremor out of her voice. "Why is that here, I still have until sunset." She was almost panicking now, the noose was around her neck and tightening, and her smiling executioner was watching. No, but that wasn't true, she remembered now, the curse said before the sun sets. Before. Her time had come.

"And by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to," Maleficent murmured, to herself as much as to the girl. With another wave of her hand, the girl's eyes glazed over and she walked over to the spindle, and touched it lightly to her finger, just enough to draw a pinprick of blood. The girl fell into a sleep like death, as she had foretold, and Maleficent created a bed of thorns around her, to showcase her triumph.

"For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?" Maleficent continued, laying a hand almost tenderly on the girl's forehead. "I'll see you in your dreams, my sleeping beauty."

 **I don't own Sleeping Beauty or Hamlet. Reviews are always appreciated.**


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